FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

TSCRA special rangers make arrests in theft cases

FORT WORTH, Texas, Oct. 5, 2007—Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association Special Ranger and District Supervisor Scott Williamson is quick to credit help from citizens, members of law enforcement and game wardens in the Oct. 4 arrest of three men suspected of cattle theft.

"There is no way we could have accomplished in two or three weeks' time what we got done in one day," Williamson, who is based in Seymour, says.

Earl Colbert Jr., Dale Ritchie and Lethal Wiseman Jr. — all residents of Hardeman County—were each arrested on two separate counts of third degree felonies of theft of 10 or more head of livestock and will be tied to crimes of more than 60 head of cattle in all.

Williamson says for the last year and a half or so, he has been receiving reports of missing cattle from along the Pease River in Hardeman and Wilbarger counties.

While investigating these cases, he received a call from fellow TSCRA Special Ranger Ben Eggleston, who was concerned with some information he came across while routinely checking sale barn records. Some of that information became evidence in one of the theft cases Williamson was investigating.

On the evening of Oct. 3, Eggleston received information that the possible suspects were unloading cattle again at a sale barn in Oklahoma. Williamson immediately traveled to Elk City, Okla., where he and Eggleston worked straight through until the arrests were made the night of Oct. 4.

In the process, the pair—with a lot of help from local law enforcement, citizens and game wardens—recovered 10 head of cattle and 67 more have been identified and accounted for.

TSCRA special rangers are working on a separate but related case involving property and cattle stolen in southern Oklahoma.

Williamson says the special rangers had received reports of livestock and equipment theft from Jackson, Harmon and Tillman counties. In the course of investigating those cases, he was contacted by the Jackson County Sheriff's Department following an arrest the department made the last weekend in September in a drug-related burglary case.

He traveled to Oklahoma and worked with the sheriff's departments from Jackson and Harmon counties. While conducting interviews, he received information that led to evidence that helped clear a case of equipment and livestock theft that had been reported directly to him.

Williamson expects this to blossom into another livestock theft investigation.

In the Oklahoma case, Buck Stephens was arrested Sept. 28 and Nathan Bradley Roberson was arrested Sept. 29, both on theft charges.

Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association is a 130-year-old trade organization whose 14,900 members manage approximately 5.4 million cattle on 70.3 million acres of range and pasture land, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma.

TSCRA–27–2007